Torso (1973)

I love this movie so much

Touches You

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

There is just something about the magic of giallo. Sergio Martino once again manages to bring a good thriller to the Italian screen. This is an early example of giallo films and probably his best after Strange Vice. Tacky and badly edited, but full of visual excess and both sexual and gory exploitation, this is a classic example of the Italian sensual thrillers that any true slasher fan has come to know and love. In most films the jumpy, confusing plot would be a detractor, but in movies like these it only adds to the overall, somehow classy, campiness. I would say that Torso is a very definitive giallo, probably a good one to show to someone unfamiliar with the genre as a starting point for what it's all about, having just the right balance of everything without too much artiness as can sometimes be hard to stomach in Argento's pieces for the newcomer. One of my favourite scenes is the one set in the swamp. It's refreshingly original and although there are some lighting issues it's fairly visually appealing. That being said, this film can feel a bit long, it does suffer from some pacing issues and the idea is stretched to create a full length film when it really needed a little more.

A sleazy gem of a giallo movie, directed by the underrated Italian director Sergio Martino, in which the camera ogles the curves of the (often naked) female cast at every opportunity. This is said to be one of the main films (along with A BAY OF BLOOD) that influenced Friday the 13th and the American slashers of the 1980s, and some scenes are very similar - namely the nubile half-naked young woman being stalked through the woods by a masked villain scene, or the various graphic murders that said mystery killer commits. Certainly the gore fan gets his money's worth here, with numerous strangulations, drownings, the killer gouging out the eyes of the corpses and slitting their bodies open, and, in a gruesome highlight, sawing through the limbs of a victim with a hacksaw whilst Suzy Kendall watches in sheer terror and disgust. This is pretty hard to see in its fully uncut version (only in Italy was it released as such) but whichever version you do see is bound to be a pretty gruelling experience.Martino directs a stylish and well-filmed movie which makes good use of the picturesque Italian countryside. Martino (along with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi) plays up the whodunit aspect of the plot whilst playing down the police investigation - the latter half of the film takes place in an isolated mountaintop location with only the girls, the killer, the milkman and a Peeping Tom handyman for company. The score helps add to the atmosphere a lot and familiar and veteran faces round out the cast. First up is pretty victim Suzy Kendall, who engages in a suspenseful cat-and-mouse chase whilst hampered with a sprained ankle; John Richardson as kindly college professor Franz; and Luc Merenda as a friendly doctor. The list of suspects is endless and the movie keeps you guessing right through until the drawn-out finale.TORSO has many familiar giallo ingredients. There's the killer with a creepy mask (this time a balaclava) and black gloves who kills with a nasty weapon; the twisted blackmail plot that serves as a basis for the murders; and, of course, a perverted childhood incident which has resulted in the warped mind of the killer ("they were only dolls, stupid dolls made out of flesh and blood"). There's also an unexpected but nice little macho bust-up between hero and villain at the end of the movie which serves as a bonus for this action lover. On top of this, large doses of sex, cheesy dialogue in the dubbed version, violence, and suspense make this a worthwhile thriller.

"Torso", or to use the more interesting literal translation of the Italian title, "The Bodies Presented Traces of Carnal Violence", is certainly one of the most entertaining gialli ever made. The movie wastes not a scene and is never boring, has style to spare and boasts some fabulous T 'n A.The plot concerns, as they always do, a black gloved killer stalking beautiful, promiscuous women. His choice of murder weapon is a red and black silk scarf, but after killing his victims he likes to gouge their eyes out, and in one scene, he apparently employs a hacksaw to dismember their already dead bodies.One of the movie's four beautiful leads receives a threatening phone call that leads her to believe she has seen the killer, and may be next on the hit list. Her uncle suggests she escapes with her three gal pals to his villa in some remote location. Are you noticing parallels to the yet-unborn slasher film?Aside from the "group of people in remote location so they can't escape the killer" set up, "Torso" also resembles a slasher more than the average giallo in that the mystery aspect of the movie isn't substantial. The red scarf clue is all but forgotten, and the big reveal of the killer's identity at the end, and explanation for his behaviour feels tacked on, as though Sergio Martino only did it because all of the other gialli did.Like most other gialli, and in contrast to the slasher, the violence is really not as graphic as you'd expect, and is instead replaced by overt eroticism. In one scene a man is killed by being repeatedly rammed by a car. We see a shot, an obvious special effect, showing a dummy head crushed between the car's front bumper and a wall. Obvious or not, it's enough to make you wince... but then the movie cuts to a shot of the actor in his death throes, covered in blood, but with his head perfectly in proportion, despite what we just saw!The movie does sex much better than it does violence. This is one of the most overtly sexual of the decent gialli, though in one unfortunate way it does resemble a slasher in this regard: the best looking girl, Tina Aumont, doesn't show any skin!

Despite having read a huge amount of praise for his work in the Giallo film sub-genre,I've found myself constantly putting director Sergio Martino's work to the bottom of my 'must watch' pile,due to having found his 1978 title The Mountain of the Cannonball God to be a rather disappointing film.With a poll for the best titles of 1973 being held on IMDb's Classic Film board,I felt that it was the best time to start afresh with Martino,and to take a look at his Giallo world for the first time.The plot:As a John and Florence Heinken start to get hot'n' heavy in a car,they spot a masked stranger staring at them.Chasing after the stranger in the woodland area,the stranger corners the couple,and kills both of them.Thanks to Florence and John both of them being popular students at an arts university,reverberations from the attack are sent across the campus.Attempting to block the dangers from her mind,a visiting US arts student accepts an offer from leading tutor Franz to take her to an opening art exhibition.Sadly for Franz and Jane,their plans are left in tatters,when another student is discovered murdered,with a red scarf around her neck.With a serial killer stalking the students,the police arrange a meeting,where they tell the students to be on the lookout for anyone who is wearing the same scarf that the killer left behind.Talking to her group of friends,Jane is left shaken,when one of them tells her that they can remember seeing someone wearing the scarf.Asking for advice from her tutor,Franz gives Jane and the gang keys to his villa,so that they can get away from all of the chaos taking place around them.Sadly,once they have reached the villa,Jane discovers that she is closer to getting a grip on the scarf than she ever could have desired.View on the film:For the screenplay of the film,co-writer/director Sergio Martino and Ernesto Gastaldi attempt to create a multi-threaded Giallo by giving an equal amount of focus to each of Jane's friends.Whilst this approach does allow for the fear that each of the characters have to be fully expressed,it also sadly causes the movie to never spend enough time on a particular character,which along with making each of the characters disappointingly interchangeable,it also leads to the mystery element feeling rather dry,due to none of the characters appearing to heavily invest in the unmasking of the stranger.Whilst the screenplay sadly fails to build a strong sense of suspense,director Sergio Martino closely works with cinematography Giancarlo Ferrando to give this Giallo a fantastic supernatural atmosphere,thanks to Martino and Ferrando superbly using corner shots to build a feeling that the stranger could appear from thin air in the corner of a room. Emphasizing the supernatural vibes Guido and Maurizo De Angelis give the film a wonderfully creepy score,which shrieks as the killer gets close to a victim in Martino's terrific Gothic Horror villa.Placed at the centre of the film,Suzy Kendall gives a fantastic performance as Jane,with Kendall brilliantly making the 30 minute near- silent final a truly nerve-wrecking experience,thanks to Kendall showing Jane having to plan each move she makes,as the mysterious scarf-wearing killer prepares to attack the next victim's torso.